Sprinting Fox: Unwritten

OC x Daemon Targaryen (HotD)

She was eighteen when her mother passed, an illness having taken hold and weakening her swiftly. Her father was never the same after that. As the oldest, it was her duty to care for her siblings, even if he could not. She'd overseen Gwayne, Bryndon, and Norman's continued instruction under the knights in the castle and had abandoned her personal reading time to tend to their wounds and encourage them– their father was too busy to watch their progress.

The majority of her time was devoted to Alicent, only ten at the time. She'd taken her to prayer the way their mother used to, letting Alicent converse with the Seven because it seemed to be the only thing that helped. Their father never asked how she fared. Seeing her play with Rhaenyra seemed to be enough for him to believe that they were all handling things perfectly well.

Then came Daemon's retort.

Her mother had so recently been interred, her family still openly grieving. Daemon had done poorly as Master of Laws and later as Master of Coin. Her father had removed him both times, and the King had instead named him Commander of the City Watch. Daemon had taken it as a slight and had asked how much coin it was costing the Crown to keep Otto in chambers with a large bed that was now only half being used, then questioned what laws to punish men who were such raging cunts that their wives died to avoid them.

That day, she'd decided she hated him. All the things her father had been saying about him were right. He was selfish, he was cruel, he was a terrible choice to be the next King. She did not wish further suffering on Queen Aemma– let the next child be a boy, let the next child be born, not stillborn, not miscarried. They needed another heir, they needed someone to dethrone Daemon.

(She even prayed to the Seven that they let Daemon have an 'accident.' The Red Keep would be free of his vile influence and the Lady Rhea would be free of a man who called her his 'bronze bitch' without remorse. She dared to pray that the Seven smite him and take his life in exchange for her mother's.)

It was easier to go about hating Daemon Targaryen. He'd insulted her mother, her beautiful and sweet mother who'd never done harm to anyone. Adara of House Leygood had proven in her lifetime to be a devout woman who loved her husband and children. Even when said husband had been speaking ill of others, his temper always getting the best of him, she'd never added fuel to his fire.

House Leygood's sigil contained three thunderbolts, and her mother had always said that the 'thunder' she should have had went instead to her three elder siblings: her uncles Andreas, Adair, and Atticus. She'd never minded being a gentle woman– it had been precisely what her children needed. It was a role she, her eldest daughter, now had to fill to the best of her abilities.

But Amalia Hightower did not think of herself as being enough like her mother. She could be motherly with her siblings because they'd lost something that she'd had for eighteen years. Alicent, especially, was in severe need of a mother. It didn't mean it came naturally to Amalia.

She was more her father's daughter than she cared to admit. This was proven in the few years after her mother's death, when she was the one everyone in her family turned to. Her father complained to her and she indulged him, often adding comments of her own now that they'd bonded over their shared hatred of Daemon Targaryen. In return, the Crown Prince hated the two of them as well.

Amalia carried thunder within her, and hoped that the bolts could one day be turned to that wretched Daemon.

She remained unwed by the time she'd turned twenty-three, holding close the promise her parents had made to not arrange a marriage without her say-so. She was too busy to court anyone. Her brother, Gwayne, had recently been made a knight but she still had to watch over her other siblings, particularly Alicent, who often drifted off into sadness whenever Rhaenyra was not around. The young Princess took to the skies with her dragon, Syrax, often, and in those moments, Amalia could not afford to leave her little sister out of her sight.